Some of the biggest names in the UK music industry have written to Prime Minister David Cameron in the hope that he can do something about illicit music downloading.

Simon Cowell, Roger Daltrey, Elton John, Brian May and Andrew Lloyd Webber are among several mega-rich celebrity figures asking the government to pressure Internet service providers, search engines and advertisers into solving the music industry’s problems.

Although not detailed specifically in the letter, the industry wants ISPs to block sites and help towards punishing file-sharers, advertisers to pull away from ‘infringing sites’, and search engines to delist unauthorized sources of online music.

As the world’s focus turns to the UK this summer, there is an opportunity to stimulate growth in sectors where the UK has a competitive edge. Our creative industries represent one such sector, which creates jobs at twice the speed of the rest of the economy.

Britain’s share of the global music market is higher than ever with UK artists, led by Adele, breaking through to global stardom. As a digitally advanced nation whose language is spoken around the world, the UK is well positioned to increase its exports in the digital age. Competition in the creative sector is in talent and innovation, not labour costs or raw materials.

We can realise this potential only if we have a strong domestic copyright framework, so that UK creative industries can earn a fair return on their huge investments creating original content. Illegal activity online must be pushed to the margins. This will benefit consumers, giving confidence they are buying safely online from legal websites.

The simplest way to ensure this would be to implement swiftly the long overdue measures in the Digital Economy Act 2010; and to ensure broadband providers, search engines and online advertisers play their part in protecting consumers and creators from illegal sites.

We are proud of our cultural heritage and believe that we and our sector can play a much bigger role in supporting UK growth. To continue to create world beating creative content, we need a little bit of help from our friends.